Stasimon 4
[Episode]
Nay, sir guest, ’tis Admetus’ wife that is no more.
Heracles
What sayest thou? and did ye then in spite of that admit me to your cheer?
Attendant
Yes, for his regard would not let him send thee from his door.
Heracles
Unhappy husband, what a wife hast thou lost!
Attendant
We are all undone, not she alone.
825
Heracles
I knew it when I saw his streaming eye, shorn head and downcast look, yet did he persuade me, saying it was a stranger he was bearing to burial. So I did constrain myself and passed his gates
and sat drinking in his hospitable halls, when he was suffering thus. And have I wreathed my head and do I revel still? But—thou to hold thy peace when such a crushing sorrow lay upon the house! Where is he burying her? Whither shall I go to find her?
830
Attendant
Beside the road that leadeth straight to Larissa, shalt thou see her carved tomb outside the suburb.
835
Heracles
O heart, O soul, both sufferers oft, now show the mettle of that son Tirynthian Alcmena, daughter of Electryon, bare to Zeus.
For I must save this woman, dead but now, setting Alcestis once again within this house, and to Admetus this kind service render. So I will go and watch for death the black-robed monarch of the dead, and him methinks I shall find
840
as he drinks of the blood-offering near the tomb. And if, from ambush rushing, once I catch and fold him in my arms’ embrace, none shall ever wrest him thence with smarting ribs, ere he give up the woman unto me.
845
But should I fail to find my prey and he come not to the clotted blood, I will go to the sunless home of those beneath the earth, to Persephone and her king, and make to them my prayer, sure that I shall bring Alcestis up again, to place her in the hands of him, my host,
850
who welcomed me to his house nor drove me thence, though fortune smote him hard, but this his noble spirit strove to hide out of regard for me. What host more kind than him in Thessaly? or in in the homes of Hellas? Wherefore shall he never say
855
his generous deeds were lavished on a worthless wretch. [Exeunt HERACLES and Servant.
860
[Choral]
Ah me! I loathe this entering in, and loathe to see my widowed home. Woe, woe is me! Whither shall I go? Where stand? what say? or what suppress? Would God that I were dead!
Admetus
Surely in an evil hour my mother gave me birth. The dead I envy, and would fain be as they, and long to dwell within their courts. No joy to me to see the light, no joy to tread the earth;
865
such a hostage death hath reft me of and handed o’er to Hades.
870
[Choral 1]
Move forward, go within the shelter of thy house.
Chorus
Thy sufferings claim these cries of woe.
Chorus
Through anguish hast thou gone, full well I know.
Chorus
Thou wilt not help the dead one whit.
875
Chorus
Nevermore to see thy dear wife face to face is grief indeed.
[Choral]
Thy words have probed the sore place in my heart. What greater grief can come to man
Admetus
than the loss of a faithful wife? Would I had never married or shared with her my home! I envy those ’mongst men who have nor wife nor child. Theirs is but one life; to grieve for that is no excessive burden;
880
but to see children fall ill and bridal beds emptied by death’s ravages is too much to bear, when one might go through life without wife or child.
885
[Choral 1]
A fate we cannot cope with is come upon us.
